This policy explains how personal data is handled when you use the Aetherphone plugin, the Aetherphone companion app, and Aethernet, the online service behind their social features. Features of the plugin that work offline, such as wallpapers, timers and notes, keep their data on your computer.
Who we are and how to contact us
Aethernet is operated by the maintainer of the Aetherphone project, publicly known as XeldarAlz, who is the data controller for the personal data described in this policy. We are a non-commercial volunteer project, not a registered company.
For any privacy question or request, write to privacy@aetherphone.net. A postal address for formal notices is available on request.
What we collect
Your character and account. You sign in by proving that you control a FINAL FANTASY XIV character, through the Lodestone, XIVAuth, or Rising Stones (石之家) on the Chinese client. We store the character's name, home world and region, and which Lodestone profile or Rising Stones account it belongs to. We never ask for your game password, an email address or your date of birth. Each character you verify has its own account.
Your profile. Your display name, a handle and in-app phone number that we create at random, your bio, pictures and settings, and any profiles you create in individual apps.
What you post and share. Posts, comments, photos, videos, voice notes, stories, reactions, poll votes, listings, events, radio stations, game rooms, and anything you send through the Feedback app. A Feedback report also includes your app version, language, game client, region and phone size, unless you turn that off before sending. We also keep who you follow, your contacts and who you block. Kupo confessions are shown to others without your name, but we store them with your account.
Private messages. Your ChocoChat, Velvet, Aethergram and Yellow Pages conversations, with their photos and voice notes. Whether we can read them is explained under Encrypted messages.
Velvet. If you use Velvet: your Velvet profile, posts, connections and messages, when you confirmed that you are 18 or older, and your character's race. Your Velvet profile shows that race to other Velvet users, or another race you choose to show. On the global client we confirm the race from the character's public Lodestone profile and check it again about once a week while you use Velvet. On the Chinese client we use the race the plugin reports.
Activity. When you were last active, when you read a conversation, and your time zone; you can hide these from other players in your settings. Which posts your feeds showed you, whether you opened or shared them, and which stories you viewed. How long you listened to community radio stations or played mini-games, for Aether Coin quests. Your current zone and world while you host or look for nearby MogCast streams and Jams. What you are listening to, if you turn on sharing it with friends. Your calls: who took part, when and for how long. Your Aether Coin and Gamba history, used to run games and detect cheating.
Reports and moderation. Reports you make and reports about you, notes moderators write, notices we send you, and any action taken on your account or content, including suspensions.
Patreon. If you link Patreon: which Patreon account you linked, whether your membership is active, and your pledge amount and tier. We never receive your payment details.
Devices and connections. The version of the app you use and where you installed it from, so that we can support current versions and refuse copies installed from sources we have blocked. For the companion app, the address our notifications are sent to, and your phone's type, language and name. Your IP address reaches us with every request. We use it only to keep the service safe and do not store it, except in a record we keep when you link or unlink Patreon. The providers that carry our traffic also see it.
On your computer. The plugin stores your encryption key and a copy of the messages it has unlocked for you on your PC. It also keeps an archive of the in-game chat the phone shows: tells, party, Free Company, linkshells and other channels. The archive is on by default and keeps 30 days of chat. You can turn it off in Settings, under Privacy, and choose how long it is kept in Linkpearl's settings. The plugin also keeps cached images and other downloads, your photos, a list matching other players' names to their Lodestone profiles, and your sign-in for services such as Faloop. Your key, your unlocked messages and these sign-ins are protected by Windows. Where that protection is not available, for example when the game runs under Wine, they are stored without it.
We do not show advertising, use analytics, tracking or crash-reporting services, or sell personal data.
Encrypted messages
ChocoChat, Velvet, Aethergram and Yellow Pages conversations are end-to-end encrypted, with an encryption key the app creates for you automatically. Messages, photos and voice notes are locked on the sender's device so that only the people in the conversation can read them, and we store them locked. Your key belongs to your account, so every device you link can read your conversations.
We keep a locked backup of your encryption key on our server. Only your recovery code can open it, and we never receive that code.
Even in a locked conversation, we can see details such as who is in it, who sent each message and when, the type and size of each message, reactions, which message a reply answers, when a message was edited or deleted, whether it was forwarded, how long voice notes are, the dimensions of photos, and whether it was read. Group chat names, pictures and descriptions are not locked.
Some text is unlocked by design:
- Reports: a message you report from the plugin reaches moderators unlocked, with up to five earlier messages from the conversation and their photos and voice notes.
- Translation: the text of a message you translate is sent to us unlocked.
- Velvet requests: the introduction sent with a connection request is not locked, so that harassment can be reported.
If a member of a conversation has no encryption key, which can happen on some computers, the app marks the conversation Not encrypted with an open-lock icon, and its messages are stored on our server in readable form. A locked conversation can also contain older messages that were stored readable before the current safeguards existed.
Calls are off until you turn them on. Call audio is protected while it travels and passes through our server. Calls are not end-to-end encrypted and are never recorded.
Translation
When you tap Translate, or turn on translation for a chat or for your feeds, Aethernet translates the text using an AI translation service provider. Only the text you choose to translate is sent, never your account details. The provider processes it only on our behalf, does not use it to improve its products, and keeps it only for a limited time to detect abuse and meet legal requirements.
We never store translations of private messages. Translations of everything else, such as posts and comments (including those only some people can see), stories, bios and listings, are kept for reuse without recording who asked. They are deleted once they are at least 90 days old and have not been used for 30 days. We count how many items you translate each day to apply a daily limit.
How we use your data and why
| Purpose | Legal basis |
|---|---|
| Providing your account and the features you use, including the translations you ask for | Performing our agreement with you (the Terms of Service) |
| Verifying your character, and refusing suspended characters and copies of the app from blocked sources | Legitimate interests |
| Keeping the service safe: reports, moderation, preventing abuse and cheating, and Velvet's age and race rules | Legitimate interests, and legal obligation where one applies |
| Fixing faults, keeping the service running and making backups | Legitimate interests |
| Optional features, such as linking Patreon or sharing your in-game location in a chat | Consent, which you can withdraw at any time |
| Velvet profile details that can reveal your sex life or sexual orientation | Your choice to add them and show them to other Velvet users |
| Answering legal requests | Legal obligation |
Where we rely on legitimate interests, we have weighed them against your rights, and you can object at any time.
Moderation. Moderation is done by people and starts from reports. Moderators may also review public content. No AI or automated system screens your content, and we do not use your content to train AI.
Automatic decisions. Some rules apply automatically: a suspended character cannot sign in, an app installed from a blocked source is refused, and Velvet is refused to Lalafell characters and, on the global client, to characters whose race we have not confirmed. Suspensions and blocks are decided by people. You can contest any of these decisions by writing to us.
Sensitive information
Some Velvet profile details, such as gender, sexuality, relationship status, kinks and limits, can reveal information about your sex life or sexual orientation. They are optional. You decide whether to add them, they are shown to other Velvet users who view your profile, and you can change or remove them at any time.
Who receives your data
- Other players see what you post and share, and the people you message receive your messages. Other players do not see your character name and home world, except in Muster, where an event's host sees those of everyone who RSVPs and players who are going see the host's, and in ChocoChat chat titles and companion app notifications when you have not set a display name. If you share a MogCast stream or let people nearby find your Jam, players in your zone and world can find and join it.
- Moderators see the data they need to review reports and enforce the rules, including your character name and home world. Locked messages stay unreadable to them. Opening a ChocoChat or Velvet conversation in the moderation tools is logged. Other views in those tools, such as conversation lists, searches and the database browser the maintainers use, can show messages that are not locked without being logged.
- Our service providers: a cloud hosting provider that runs the service; a network and storage provider that carries traffic to the service and stores media and backups; an AI translation service provider; and providers that host our community radio server, run our backups and deliver our internal alerts.
- Notification services built into iOS and Android deliver companion app notifications. A notification includes the sender's name and, for unlocked ChocoChat messages, comments, mentions, quotes, reposts and likes on comments, the related text.
- Sign-in services: the Lodestone, XIVAuth and Rising Stones confirm that you control your character.
- Patreon, if you link it, is an independent service with its own privacy policy.
- Authorities, where the law requires it or where it is necessary to investigate a serious safety issue. We will tell you when we are allowed to.
Some apps in the plugin fetch information directly from other services, from your computer, for example market prices, venue and event listings, news, housing, music, lyrics and video, character portraits, game data and the icons of plugins you have installed. The plugin also downloads tools and files that some apps need, such as media players and game files. These services receive your IP address and what you asked for, which can include character names or your Lodestone profile, and they have their own privacy policies. When you watch a MogCast stream, your computer loads the video from the address the host chose, so that site also receives your IP address. A login you enter for another service inside an app, such as Faloop in the Hunts app, goes directly to that service.
International transfers
Our providers may process your data in countries other than your own. When data leaves the UK or the European Economic Area, we rely on standard contractual clauses, the data protection terms approved for this purpose, which our providers include in their agreements. Signing in through Rising Stones involves a check with Rising Stones in China. Our translation provider may process the text you translate in any country where it operates.
How long we keep data
We keep personal data only as long as we need it for the purposes in this policy.
| Data | How long |
|---|---|
| Account, profile and settings | Until you delete your account |
| Posts, comments and other content | Until you delete it or your account, with the exceptions explained below this table |
| Private messages | Until you delete them or your account, or 7 days after everyone in the conversation has cleared it. A Velvet conversation is deleted 7 days after the connection ends. A Yellow Pages conversation is deleted together with its listing, not when it is cleared |
| Stories, listings, events, notifications and game rooms | Deleted automatically within 60 days after they end |
| Which posts your feeds showed you, and whether you opened or shared them | 4 days |
| Radio listening and mini-game sessions for Aether Coin quests | 7 days |
| Call records | Until you delete your account |
| Aether Coin history | Each entry for 180 days, then as monthly totals until you delete your account |
| Gamba records | Up to 180 days for most records. Blackjack hand histories and closed private tables are kept without a time limit and stay linked to your character after you delete your account |
| Reports and moderation records | As long as needed for safety and abuse prevention, including after your account is deleted. The text and media of removed content are deleted 7 days after removal |
| Records linked to your character, such as a suspension | Up to 365 days after your account is deleted |
| Backups | Deleted data leaves our backups after about 30 days. Photos and other media uploaded before 21 July 2026 also remain in an archive of our previous storage, with no set end date |
Copies made during maintenance or recovery work can be kept outside these periods.
When you delete your account, your profile and content are removed immediately, with two exceptions: community radio stations you created stay until you ask us to remove them, and the text of Aethergram messages you sent stays with the person you sent it to until they clear the conversation. The rest of the data listed above is kept only for the periods shown. The account deletion page explains what is deleted and what is kept.
Your rights and choices
If you are in the UK or the European Economic Area, you have the right to access your data, correct it, have it deleted, restrict or object to how we use it, receive it in a portable form where this applies, and withdraw consent at any time. We apply these rights to every user, wherever you live.
To use any of these rights, write to privacy@aetherphone.net. We respond within one month.
The fastest way to delete your account is in the plugin: open Settings, then Account, then Delete account. Deletion takes effect immediately. It is not available while the account is suspended. In the companion app, open Settings, then Delete account. You can also ask us by email, and the account deletion page explains every option.
In Aethergram's settings you can make your account private. In Settings, under Privacy, you can choose who can mention or tag you.
You can also complain to your data protection authority, such as the UK Information Commissioner's Office (ico.org.uk).
Children
Aethernet is not for children under 13, and we do not knowingly collect their data. We do not ask for or check your age. Velvet is only for adults aged 18 and over: you confirm your age with one tap before entering, and we record when you did, but we do not verify it.
If you believe a child under 13 has an account, tell us at privacy@aetherphone.net and we will remove it. Child safety concerns can also be sent to childsafety@aetherphone.net.
Security
Connections between the apps and Aethernet are encrypted, and access to our servers is limited to the maintainers who need it. No service is perfectly secure. If a breach affects your data, we will notify you and the relevant authority as the law requires.
Changes to this policy
We will announce material changes in the plugin and update the date at the top of this page.